France and AI

As a Stanford-educated expert in AI and French citizen, I agree with President Macron that AI should be at the service of humans and support his ambition to make France a leader in AI.

There’s another thing I share with President Macron and mathematician Cédric Villani who directed the national AI report: we are Young Leaders of the French-American Foundation. Since 1981, this program selects every year 20 leaders from different fields in France and the US, aged between 30 and 40. Macron was a 2012 Young Leader and I was selected in 2016.

AI should be viewed as a tool to enhance the lives and work of humans. Like every other technology, it is a double-edged sword. It has great potential, but can also lead to negative consequences and disappointments, if not understood, developed or used responsibly. The most pressing task in AI is not to create more advanced AI technologies, but to adapt existing AI techniques to different applications, and to create systems where humans and AI are better integrated.